​As reported on the Patheos blog, former basketball star Shaquille O’Neal, who holds a doctorate in education from Barry University, announced that he is a flat earth conspiracy theorist during his podcast this week, but what’s worse is that he also came out as a hyper-diffusionist who seems to have spent too much time watching cable TV “history” shows. He claimed that the Americas had already been colonized by white people long before Columbus reached the Caribbean:

… It’s true. The Earth is flat. The Earth is flat. Yeah, it is. Yes, it is. Listen, there’s three ways to manipulate the mind: What you read, what you see, and what you hear. In school, first thing they teach us is, “Oh, Columbus discovered America,” but when he got there, there were some fair-skinned people with the long hair smoking on the peace pipes. So, what does that tell you? Columbus didn’t discover America!

O’Neal is one of many current and former NBA stars to have been seduced by flat earth conspiracy theories, but he is the first I know of who has publicly endorsed the “lost white race” hypothesis for the peopling of the Americas.

Now, to be fair, O’Neal is somewhat correct in that (a) the Norse colonized part of Canada before Columbus and (b) Columbus did indeed report finding white-skinned Native peoples in the Caribbean, and this is something that “lost white race” and hyper-diffusionist speculators have long used as evidence. However, at the time Columbus wrote, modern racial categories had not yet been solidified, and his notice of the different skin tones of the Native peoples was not considered evidence of a European presence in the New World, at least not at first.

Well, I can’t take any more of this, so let’s talk about something completely different…

Last week in The Week entertainment journalist and critic Noel Murray published a piece asking why American TV is so suffused with time travel programs right now. The list of shows from the past year or two that are either premised on time travel or use the conceit regularly is almost ridiculously long: 11.22.63, 12 Monkeys, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, The Flash, Frequency, Making History, Outlander, Time after Time, Timeless, Travelers, and others I am sure I have forgotten. Add to that British time travel staple Doctor Who and Anglo-American coproduction Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, and it really starts to get silly, especially when the same historical events become fodder for multiple programs. The question for Murray, however, was how this trend arose and why it has come to dominate today’s airwaves.

Is the upsurge in time-travel TV part of the general apocalyptic strain in American popular culture, seen also in the waves of zombie tales and bleakly existential horror movies? Are we waking up to the potential world-ending threats of global warming, our depleted natural resources, and nuclear war; and are we wishing we had the power to do everything over again, but better?

​Murray never quite comes to a conclusion in the article, throwing out a range of possible explanations, and omitting the most likely: copycat syndrome. Once one show succeeds, clones multiply like rabbits. That said, the current spate of time travel shows all seem to share a common, and somewhat pessimistic, fatalism, that somehow this is the best of all possible worlds, and no matter what we do, our actions are futile and unable to materially alter the predestined facts of creation. A disturbing number of these programs blather on and on about the sanctity of the “timeline,” and how certain “fixed points” in history can’t, or at least shouldn’t, be altered. Even when changing the timeline is the whole point of the show, there is still a great moral imperative to pretend that the present, no matter how awful it currently is, is the least bad of all options.

Murray doesn’t quite strike at that theme, but it is perhaps the clearest takeaway from the time travel genre. Our society, as a whole, seems to recognize that something has gone wrong. It’s not as apocalyptically bleak as, say, 1929-1945, but the sense of the established order spinning out of control is palpable. Time travel shows aren’t, as Murray suggests, simply flawed efforts at escape and nostalgia but rather fictitious justifications for why things have to be this way. Even on Time after Time, the most classic in form of all the time travel shows, H. G. Wells is deeply disappointed in our flawed future but comes to realize that it could always be worse.

And isn’t that the motto of our age? Hey, it could be worse.

We seem to be living in a new culture of cruelty, where every pundit and public official feels empowered to act out Social Darwinist fantasies of nature red in tooth and claw. In Florida, Katherine Fernandez Rundle, the state attorney for Miami-Dade since 1993 (!), refused on Friday to prosecute prison guards who essentially boiled an inmate to death in a 180° shower, claiming that watching a man succumb to burns and scream in agony as he died by their actions shows no disregard for safety. On the national stage, the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, confessed that he had dreamed of limiting the poor’s access to health care since he was a drunken college student. The incidents, large and small, can be seen from coast to coast and among members of both political parties. Last week, 150 civil rights groups expressed concern about the tack toward anger, fear, and hate. There have always been cruel people, but today there are many fewer gatekeepers applying the breaks or standing up for compassion, or even basic human decency. Conservative pundit Erick Erickson even tweeted on Friday that Jesus’ words on compassion should be read as applying only to “Christians” and no one else. Surely there must be an irony award for so-called “Christians” embracing Social Darwinism?

It seems that 15 years ago, when Americans debated whether to torture our way to safety through the euphemism of “enhanced interrogation,” the critics who warned of a corrosive effect that cruelty would have on culture were right. Have you watched some of these cop shows, especially the ones CBS puts out, over the past decade or so? 24 is the obvious example, but the seemingly anodyne Hawaii Five-O is essentially torture fetish porn with palm trees, openly celebrating a team of rogue cops who act outside legal and constitutional restrictions on torture, unlawful seizure, and other niceties in the name of an all-powerful state government. Many of CBS’s other shows follow the same pattern, asking us to identify with characters who openly engage in acts of violence or extralegal police state tactics in pursuit of national security. Even family-friendly MacGyver asks us to assume that the government needs extralegal assistance from a team willing to break international law to get the job done. Don’t even get me started on the noxious politics of NBC’s Blacklist shows. At least ABC’s Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. recognizes that there are problems with fetishizing authoritarian disregard of the rule of law, even as it asks us to put our faith in people who operate outside and beyond the law.

The bottom line is that TV is reflecting—and helping to create—a contempt for the rule of law, and for the basic tenets of decency that once underpinned what we used to call civil society. You can’t sit through dozens of hours celebrating the worst of humanity every week without it having an effect. Look, we know most people don’t read—26% of Americans, including one-third of all men, read no books at all. If the relatively few gonzo programs on cable TV—the main vector of exposure—can infect millions of Americans with ancient astronaut theories and hyper-diffusionist beliefs (between 25% and 40% of Americans, according to Chapman University), certainly ten or twenty times the number of unethical and amoral crime dramas must have an effect orders of magnitude worse.

Time travel has always been a tricky story element. Look at how many episodes in the Star Trek franchise used it, then listen to how many fans groan because of it. In my opinion, the worst offender was the Terminator franchise, which told us by the third movie that the events in the first two movies were predestined to happen, making both pointless.

I can agree with the last two paragraphs, but TV can only be held accountable for so much. You're basically making the same argument that was used by Christian fundamentalists against the music and video game industries. I would say, however, your point has more weight.

You're right that the argument is similar to that used to berate music and video game companies. It's never entirely certain how much influence a specific media product has on the audience, but the Christians aren't wrong that pervasive sex on TV helps shape attitudes and normalizes different types of behavior. Frankly, the entire media industry would benefit from considering the effects of the images and stories they promote. Obviously, we don't want to reduce art to didacticism, but there is something to be said for content creators thinking about the message they are sending, not just what gets the highest ratings.

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Only Me

3/20/2017 12:29:07 pm

Could this current environment be a result of the Telecommunications Act of 1996? I don't believe in censorship, but with so many parent companies owning multiple channels, it seems a program can find a spot no matter the content.

V

3/20/2017 02:33:37 pm

It's kind of an intricate feedback dance, though. The casual disregard for authority has been part of the American character since the start--after all, those taxes we were protesting? Were kinda sorta for the most part imposed because of Colonial war profiteering and counterfeiting. And I do think our TV shows reinforce the message that to be "individual," you must have some disregard for authority. I just don't think that encouraging reading would change that, since our BOOKS often have the same theme. How ubiquitous, for instance, is the picture that "when parents are away, children MUST have a party" or "when unsupervised, children MUST find something to do that breaks rules"? It's absolutely pervasive.

It's not that TV should stop airing these kinds of shows. It's just that we need a greater variety that shows actual CONSEQUENCES for this sort of thing, or maybe doesn't have it happen just about EVERY episode. Maybe even shows more of cops treating people with basic human dignity, instead of "like dirtbags" all the time. Show the heroes winning WITHOUT breaking the law. Show court cases being thrown out entirely, and judges unsympathetically telling the lawyers that well maybe if the police hadn't acted illegally/unethically, this person wouldn't have walked. Heck, show action/adventure shows that have the good guys going, "Well, yes, Jack, that would WORK, but it would be illegal and unethical. We're heroes, not criminals, we have to find a way that works without violating, you know, the general principals of how we work."

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Americanegro

3/20/2017 04:58:54 pm

Mr. O'Neal is the sad product of the college sportsball industry. At one point after retiring from sportsball he thought he could make a good undercover police officer.

You are right about Hawaii Five-0; in the first episode the unit was given "full means and immunity" whatever that means, by the Governor. On the bright side, NCIS Los Angeles had two of the main characters tortured, pliers to teeth torture, and they were somewhat traumatized.

Time Travel has always been with us going fnord back to at least Lost in Space and of course The Time Tunnel. You're just noticing it more because They want you to notice it.

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A Buddhist

3/20/2017 06:00:05 pm

Jason,

Are you aware that the Chinese government had a similar realization about the political aspects of time-travel television? The Chinese government concluded that time travel plots were evidence of a desire to escape present day China. So the Chinese government banned such plots as the basis for television.

Obviously, such prohibition could not occur in the United States or Canada because of constitutional guarantees of free expression in both countries, but this prohibition is evidence that you are not the only person to draw a connection between interest in time travel and popular sentiment about a time.

This is not meant as a criticism, but rather as praise; you are working in a fascinating field of cultural criticism.

As far as the flat earth doctrine goes, I think that it is an unfortunate result of the confluence of several circumstances:

1. Excessive Trust in Ancient Authorities: The scriptures of all ancient religions excepting Platonists teach that the World is flat. The modern North American Flat Earth movement, I have read, arose during the 19th century as a reaction to multiple fields' disproving of aspects of the Biblical account of the world; in response, some Christians withdrew to a hyper-literalism not seen within Christianity since the 6th century CE.

2. Excessive Mistrust of Modern Authority: This factor often supports and/or arises from the First Factor. If one distrust authority that is more recent than a certain cut off point, then one discounts almost all science.

3. Appropriation of the Form but not Substance of Critical Thinking: This is when people mistake Critical Thinking for a mere permission to doubt everything, and fail to take into account the fact that Critical Thinking includes not just ways to generate doubt, but also ways to end doubt about some things. For example, I could be in terror of aliens swooping down from the sky and abducting me, but because I have applied critical thinking to alien abduction claims, I do not doubt the governments' claims that aliens do not pose a threat to us and are not known to us.

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Americanegro

3/20/2017 06:46:22 pm

"The scriptures of all ancient religions excepting Platonists teach that the World is flat."

Wrong. Imagine my surprise.

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A Buidfdhist

3/20/2017 08:58:46 pm

Really?

Because here are the scriptures that I know of that teach the world to be flat:

Buddhist
Christian
Hindu
Jain
Jewish
Muslim
Zoroastrian

And then, adding in those religious traditions that have no codified scriptures, one learns of:

Greek
Chinese
Mesopotamian
Nahuatl
Norse

traditions, all of which teach that the world is flat.

Americanegro: Which religious scripture do you know about that teaches of a spherical world? Which verses, slokas, ayats, etc., of these scriptures will you cite from these scriptures as saying that the world is spherical?

For a most excellent discussion of the flat Earth cosmology of the Jews and the Christians, consider the following website:

https://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/febible.htm

For a most excellent discussion of the flat Earth cosmology of the Muslims, consider the following website:

http://www.skeptical-science.com/religion/quran-state-earth-flat/

For a most excellent discussion of the flat Earth cosmology of the Buddhists and Hindus and Jains, consider the following website:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Meru

For a most excellent discussion of the flat Earth cosmology of World religious traditions in general, consider the following website:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth#Historical_development

A Buddhist

3/20/2017 09:21:05 pm

I apologize for mistyping my user name. It should have been A Buddhist, not A Buidfdhist. My cerebral palsy makes me a bad typist.

V

3/20/2017 09:21:53 pm

That's a modern myth, sweetheart. http://www.veritas-ucsb.org/library/russell/FlatEarth.html This shows is better than I have time to bother with.

Now you have doubled down on your original "all" which it was never incumbent on me to disprove, with a list of things, and to be right you have to prove them ALL. "Flat earth" has never been a Buddhist teaching but it's not up to me to prove that it wasn't, it's up to you to prove that it was.

The Greeks made fairly accurate calculations of the Earth's DIAMETER and more importantly CIRCUMFERENCE long before CE.

As I said it's not up to me to prove you're wrong -- "Which religious scripture do you know about that teaches of a spherical world? Which verses, slokas, ayats, etc., of these scriptures will you cite from these scriptures as saying that the world is spherical?" -- It's up to you to prove you're right. Twelve times.

If you COULD do that, and you can't because you are wrong, you need to prove that those twelve are "all [the] ancient religions excepting Platonists". The special never stops does it?

I know for a fact you will fail with Chinese, confident that you will fail with Buddhuism, and I'm betting you will fail with Christian, Muslim, and "Mesopotamian" whatever that is. In spite of our many discussions you continue to try to teach. If I wanted to study "stuff that's obviously wrong" I would surely seek your tuition.

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At Risk

3/21/2017 01:29:14 pm

Jason: "Even when changing the timeline is the whole point of the show, there is still a great moral imperative to pretend that the present, no matter how awful it currently is, is the least bad of all options."

Thanks, Jason, this is a good subject to discuss. I would like to point out that "the present" isn't necessarily this present calendar day, when one goes back in time. When one goes back in time, the past becomes the "new present" to live in. So, what are we talking about, exactly? Are we talking about the new present back in time being the least bad of all options, or the calendar day, today?

In the wildly unsuccessful fantasy-adventure novel I published in 2012, I used time travel as a device to zero-in on a particular timeframe, around AD 1500. I used an even older medieval medallion, coupled with solar eclipses, to facilitate the main character and his grandfather before him going back in time. The main character is a Native American teen of mixed blood (French). While there in the past--in the "new present," he has to make the decision about which era and circumstances would be better for his future. I won't ruin the ending, in case the obscure story is ever made into a movie.

("A Light in the Forest" comes to mind, a book I read as a teen, but without the time travel element. The protagonist, captured as a boy, must later choose to live as a white man or as an American Indian; he prefers the latter.)

IDK about Flat Earth yet, but it's increasingly challenging to believe the common belief we were ALL taught in School that we're hurling around the Sun at the astonishing speed of 67,000 MPH, while at the same time spinning at 1000 MPH at the Equator...Also amazing how the Earth ''posed'' perfectly still while the Earth was traveling at that 67,000 mph, from the surface of the Moon decades ago as well when the Astronauts allegedly took a picture of it from there. IDK much, but I do know that our School system tries to suppress any kind critical thinking, the kind of that usually doesn't surface until well after indoctrination of School...Currently Glancing at the beautiful and still clouds up in the Sky...amazing how those clouds are barely moving, while we're all hurling around space at 67,000 MPH.

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El Cid

3/21/2017 11:07:05 pm

Well I was skeptical about claims for pre-Columbian European populating of the Americas, but if Shaq is on board...

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At Risk

3/22/2017 11:25:59 am

Here's something else to possibly eat away at your skepticism, EL CID, something I found this morning in obscure bibliographical notes in one of Holand's books, "Westward From Vinland," page 330, in which Holand is quoting remarks by Philip Ainsworth Means, an historian whose study of the Kensington Runestone led him to the archives of Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland.

"6. It seems to me that Mr. Holand is wrong with regard to the route taken by the expedition. I think that, having been to Greenland to look for the lost ones, they went to Vinland, between Cape Cod and the Hudson. A manuscript of the fourteenth century in Paris makes it look very probable that Vinland was then a secret colony of the King of Norway."

Well, I guess this might help explain those pesky Hooked-X's, too, which are oddly attributable to a "secret style" of writing.

Does this possibly indicate a vivid connection between secrecy of location and secrecy of language? If so, no wonder this past colony within Greater Vinland is so difficult to pinpoint--along with details about past Scandinavian expeditions into America, such as the KRS party. We can notice that plenty of information was given in the inscription, but reference to the party's exact representation (identity) is lacking. Why? What more could have been said about who or what entity the men may have been representing? Were Knights Templar part of the Vinland scene? Again, did the secretive Hooked-X and the secretive location of Vinland go together? Was the King of Norway and the Catholic Church or post-Templars practicing secrecy together? When? Before or after the infamous 1307 split-up, or both?

EL CID, it's okay and even good for you to realize that many Europeans were in America long before Columbus showed up. We're talking about hundreds of years before he showed up. In my "non-fringe fringe" view, America's historians need to catch up with accurate history.

There were no log-jams preventing Norsemen from exploring many of America's waterways back during this secretive timeframe. The Norse were in America early, and the French were tardy...very tardy. Therefore the hidebound robes of false history should come slipping off the shoulders of our current, esteemed historians...some even posing as professors!

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A Buddhist

3/22/2017 08:35:49 pm

Americanegro:

If you had read the links that I provided, you would have seen explicit confirmation that Chinese, Indian, and Mesopotamian (a word which here means "pertaining to the peoples living along side the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers") religions held that the world was flat. Particularly relevant to the topic of Flat Earth within Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism is the role of Mount Meru. I linked to a summary of information about that mountain and its role in a flat Earth Cosmography, but I doubt that you read it; if you had, you could not have denied that Buddhism, as represented by its scriptures, teaches a Flat Earth.

Since you do not read the evidence that I provide for you, I am becoming convinced that you are not arguing against me in good faith.

It is not enough to reply "I am not going to do your research for you," because I am not asking you to do my research for me. Rather, I have already done research into this topic, and have presented it for you to read for yourself if you doubt it. You may choose not to read the research that I have read and present to you for your consideration, but this leads to absurd results. Perhaps a parable may help you to understand.

Imagine two rival artists, A and B. A is convinced that he is the best artist. B responds to this claim by trying to produce a better piece of art. A, however, refuses to look at B's art, because to him it is a waste of time to look at what he thinks must be inferior art. In this situation, A is able to continue believing that he is best by not considering any alternative. But normal people would find absurd the idea that a person would legitimately preserve his greatness as an artist through the expedience of not looking at art made by a rival artist.

For these reasons, I am shocked that you would dismiss my claims without looking at my sources. But if you maintain such an attitude, then you abdicate the right to credibly judge the accuracy of my claims.

I am aware that Greek philosophers, such as Eratosthenes, were able to recognize the sphericity of the Earth, but I was not talking about them; rather, I was talking about the Greek religion, as represented in its texts, such as Homer. There, you read references to the inhabited world being a disc surrounded by the River Ocean.

I was, in my original comment, referring only to religions represented by scriptures from antiquity. If, however, we want to adopt a broader definition of religion, then it is true that I was overly broad; not knowing all religions that have been and are, I cannot say whether every religion taught that the world was flat.

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Americanegro

3/22/2017 09:05:30 pm

Flat Earth and Mt. Meru are not qualified by the Four Seals, therefore are not Buddhist teachings. QED.

Homer??? That's like saying The Hardy Boys and Tom Swift taught Flat Earth. "Homer" certainly is not a "scripture". Fail.

China: you provided no evidence from Chinese "scriptures". Fail.

Predictably, your parable doesn't address the relevant situation. But I knew that: anytime you teach you are wrong.

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A Buddhist

3/23/2017 05:07:37 pm

Americanegro:

Thank you very much for providing a clear list of the type of evidence that you want.

Now that I know what evidence will satisfy you, I can provide it.

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A Buddhist

3/23/2017 05:08:40 pm

Firstly, the Buddhist evidence:

You mention the Four Seals as the defining traits of Buddhist teachings, and claim that because the Four Seals do not apply to Mt Meru, Mt Meru is not part of Buddhist teachings. This is a strange approach, since the Four Seals refer to Buddhist doctrines about ultimate reality, yet there are other aspects of the Buddhist scriptures that are not dealing with ultimate reality yet, by being written within Buddhist Scriptures, are part of Buddhism.

To limit Buddhism to teachings marked by the Four Seals would exclude aspects of Buddhism found in the Buddhist scriptures, since they do not teach the Four Seals. To do this would exclude many aspects of Buddhism, such as the relationship between the Buddha and Ananda, the Buddha and Bimbisara, etc. Take, for example, the following excerpt from the Tipitaka, Sn 3.1 PTS: Sn 405-424 Pabbaja Sutta.

Then he, the Buddha, went to Rajagaha, the mountain fortress of the Magadhans, and wandered for alms, endowed with all the foremost marks. King Bimbisara, standing in his palace, saw him, and on seeing him, consummate in marks, said: "Look at this one, sirs. How handsome, stately, pure! How consummate his demeanor! Mindful, his eyes downcast, looking only a plow-length before him, as one who's not from a lowly lineage: Send the royal messengers at once to see where this monk will go."

This is an excerpt from the Tipitaka, and therefore part of the Buddhist religion, yet it has not any of the Four Seals.
It does not teach that all compounded things are impermanent
It does not teach that all emotions are unsatisfactory.
It does not teach that all phenomena are without inherent existence.
It does not teach that Nirvana is beyond description.
I prefer to define Buddhism as that which is found within Buddhist scriptures, as well as derived practices. I am aware that various Buddhist practices contradict Buddhist scriptural teachings (most notoriously the Pudgalavada school of Buddhism), but this is true with other religions as well; most Christians, for example, do not greet each other through kissing even though the Bible tells them to do this (1 Corinthians 16:20, 2 Corinthians 13:12, 1 Thessalonians 5:26, 1 Peter 5:14).

With these remarks and definitions, I can provide you with explicit Buddhist Scriptural references to Mt Meru and the flat Earth:

DN 32 PTS: D iii 194 Atanatiya Sutta: Discourse on Atanatiya
…
"Bhante, may the Blessed One learn the Atanata[4] protection so that the displeased Yakkhas may be pleased, so that the monks and nuns, laymen and laywomen, may be at ease, guarded, protected and unharmed."
The Blessed One gave consent by his silence. Then the great King Vessavana, knowing that the Blessed One had consented, recited the Atanatiya protection:
…
7-8. "When the resplendent sun — offspring of Aditi — with its full orb, arises, then the night ceases, and it is called the day. The direction from which the sun rises (is the East). There exists the ocean deep and vast.
9. "This — a spreading sheet of water — they know as the ocean. Where there is East (to the East of Mount Meru) they say that quarter is East.
10. "Custodian of this quarter is a great king named Dhatarattha who has a retinue of attendants, and is sovereign lord of the Gandhabbas.
16-18. "The direction from where the petas (corpses), backbiters, murderers, the fierce brigands, and the deceitful are removed, is the direction (to the right of Mount Meru), and is called the quarter of the South. The custodian of this quarter is a great king named Virulha who has a retinue of attendants, and is the sovereign lord of Kumbhandas. Attended by the Kumbhandas he enjoys their song and dance.
23-24. "When the resplendent sun — offspring of Aditi — with its full orb, sets, then the day ceases, and it is called night. The direction where the sun sets (is the West). There exists the ocean deep and vast.
25. "This — a spreading sheet of water — they know as the ocean. Where there is West (to the West of Mount Meru) they say that quarter is West.
26. "Custodians of this quarter is a great king named Virupakkha who has a retinue of attendants, and is sovereign lord of the Nagas.
32. "Where lies delightful Uttarakuru (the Northern continent), where towers beautiful Mount Meru, there are born men who are selfless and unattached.
43-44. "That direction (to the North of Mount Meru) is called by people the quarter of the North. The custodian of this quarter is a great king named Kuvera who has a retinue of attendants, and is sovereign lord of the Yakkhas. Attended by the Yakkhas he enjoys their songs and dance.

I have quoted to you, from this Atanatiya Sutta, a description of the world that the Buddha approved of. It portrays a world of 4 quarters, in the centre of which is Mt Meru. To the East and west are said to lie oceans out of which and into which the sun moves as it travels from the East to the West over the wo

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A Buddhist

3/23/2017 05:10:19 pm

[Continued from earlier discussion about Flat Earth in Buddhism]...world. If there were a spherical world being talked about, then this movement of the Sun would not be emphasized in terms of absolute East and West. Only with a flat Earth do East and West as absolute directions make sense.

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A Buddhist

3/23/2017 05:11:38 pm

Now, the Mesopotamian (by which is meant Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Akkadian etc.) evidence of a flat Earth: I cite, as example, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography in the Bible, Part 3 By Brian Godawa (guest author). In this work we read:

The geography of the Babylonian map portrayed a flat disc of earth with Babylon in the center and extending out to the known regions of its empire, whose perimeters were surrounded by cosmic waters and islands out in those waters. Of the earliest Sumerian and Akkadian texts with geographical information, only the Babylonian map of the world and another text, The Sargon Geography, describe the earth’s surface, and they both picture a central circular continent surrounded by cosmic waters, often referred to as “the circle of the earth.”5 Other texts like the Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh, and Egyptian, and Sumerian works share in common with the Babylonian map the notion of mountains at the edge of the earth beyond which is the cosmic sea and the unknown,6 and from which come “the circle of the four winds” that blow upon the four corners of the earth (a reference to compass points).7

The Biblical picture of the earth is remarkably similar to this Mesopotamian cosmic geography. When Daniel had his dream from God in Babylon, of a tree “in the middle of the earth” whose height reached so high that “it was visible to the end of the whole earth,” (Dan. 4:10) it reflected this very Babylonian map of the culture that Daniel was educated in. One cannot see the end of the whole earth on a globe, but one can do so on a circular continent embodying the known world of Babylon as the center of the earth.

“The ends of the earth” is a common phrase, occurring over fifty times throughout the Scriptures that means more than just “remote lands,” but rather includes the notion of the very physical end of the whole earth all round before the cosmic waters that hem it in. Here are just a few of the verses that indicate this circular land mass bounded by seas as the entire earth: Isa. 41:9; Psa. 65:5; Zech. 9:10; Mark 13:27; Acts 13:47; Job 28:24

Remember that Mesopotamian phrase, “circle of the earth” that meant a flat disc terra firma? Well, it’s in the Bible too. “It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers” (Isa. 40:22). Some have tried to say that the Hebrew word for “circle” could mean sphere, but it does not. The Hebrew word used here (?ûg) could however refer to a vaulted dome that covers the visible circular horizon, which would be more accurate to say, “above the vault of the earth.”8 If Isaiah had wanted to say the earth was a sphere he would have used another word that he used in a previous chapter (22:18) for a ball, but he did not.9

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A Buddhist

3/23/2017 05:13:01 pm

Chinese References to the Flat Earth: To quote Wikpedia:

In ancient China, the prevailing belief was that the Earth was flat and square, while the heavens were round,[45] an assumption virtually unquestioned until the introduction of European astronomy in the 17th century.[46][47][48] The English sinologist Cullen emphasizes the point that there was no concept of a round Earth in ancient Chinese astronomy:

Chinese thought on the form of the earth remained almost unchanged from early times until the first contacts with modern science through the medium of Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth century. While the heavens were variously described as being like an umbrella covering the earth (the Kai Tian theory), or like a sphere surrounding it (the Hun Tian theory), or as being without substance while the heavenly bodies float freely (the Hsüan yeh theory), the earth was at all times flat, although perhaps bulging up slightly.[49]

The model of an egg was often used by Chinese astronomers such as Zhang Heng (78–139 AD) to describe the heavens as spherical:

The heavens are like a hen's egg and as round as a crossbow bullet; the earth is like the yolk of the egg, and lies in the centre.[50]

This analogy with a curved egg led some modern historians, notably Joseph Needham, to conjecture that Chinese astronomers were, after all, aware of the Earth's sphericity. The egg reference, however, was rather meant to clarify the relative position of the flat earth to the heavens:

In a passage of Zhang Heng's cosmogony not translated by Needham, Zhang himself says: "Heaven takes its body from the Yang, so it is round and in motion. Earth takes its body from the Yin, so it is flat and quiescent". The point of the egg analogy is simply to stress that the earth is completely enclosed by heaven, rather than merely covered from above as the Kai Tian describes.

Further examples cited by Needham supposed to demonstrate dissenting voices from the ancient Chinese consensus actually refer without exception to the Earth being square, not to it being flat.[52] Accordingly, the 13th-century scholar Li Ye, who argued that the movements of the round heaven would be hindered by a square Earth, did not advocate a spherical Earth, but rather that its edge should be rounded off so as to be circular.

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A Buddhist

3/23/2017 05:15:19 pm

Greek Flat Earth: It is strange that you compare Homer to Tom Swift, since the Greeks had a much more elevated understanding of the man. Homer’s works were treated as authorities for many matters, ranging from climate (as per Herodotus) to history (by Thucydides). Many philosophers tried to make Homer’s works more philosophical by reinterpreting them, a trend satirized in Heliodorus of Emesa’s novel An Ethiopian Tale with the strained allegorizing interpretation of Homer by the Ethiopian priest Kalasiris. So while Homer was not as highly revered as the Bible to Christians or the Qu’ran to Muslims or the Lotus Sutra to many Buddhists (excluding this Buddhist), his works held much vaster moral and intellectual authority than Tom Swift.

Even if I concede that Homer’s words are the equivalent of mere entertaining literature, surely they remain valuable as encapsulating Greek religion’s understanding of the flat Earth at the time when they were composed, rather like the original Tom Swift Books remain valuable as encapsulating American racist attitudes.

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Americanegro

3/23/2017 06:03:33 pm

You haven't listed all of the "Mesopotamian" religions or scriptures. "etc." doesn't cut it. Nor have you quoted examples for all of them, actually NOT FROM ANY OF THEM. So, Fail.

No Buddhist is required to accept anything not qualified by the Four Seals. So, Fail.

Homer's work is made up. Would it make you feel better if I compared him to Herman Wouk? So, Fail.

You continue to refuse to quote any Chinese scriptures. So, Fail.

These four failures are just the low-hanging fruit from your recent spate of emails. You are, and remain, wrong.

You are a shanda for Buddhism.

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A Buddhist

3/23/2017 07:30:51 pm

Americanegro:

I did not quote Mesopotamian scriptures because I found a scholarly work that synthesized the positions taken by those scriptures. Do you not trust that scholar's words? Do you only trust primary sources? Because that seems to me to be a big Fail for you, if you will not trust secondary sources.

Since you define Buddhism as the Four Seals only, you must reject every aspect of Buddhism not taught from the Buddha's mouth. This is an extremely narrow definition of Buddhism. Does this mean, for example, that you reject the claim that the Buddha had a past life in Tushita Heaven as not part of Buddhism unless it was claimed by the Buddha himself? In any event, I cannot be faulted if we so radically differ in defining what Buddhism is, any more than I can be faulted for our not agreeing what a "completely made up concept" is.

You have not addressed my claim that Homer's work represented Greek religious views about the world at the time, including a flat Earth. So you Fail in that.

You did not notice that I quoted Chinese Scriptures, namely: "In a passage of Zhang Heng's cosmogony not translated by Needham, Zhang himself says: "Heaven takes its body from the Yang, so it is round and in motion. Earth takes its body from the Yin, so it is flat and quiescent". The point of the egg analogy is simply to stress that the earth is completely enclosed by heaven, rather than merely covered from above as the Kai Tian describes." So you Fail in that.

You are, with your refusal to read any sources that I and others provide for you, your hostile and insulting tone towards me and others, and your refusal to treat me with any respect, a disgrace to the American Nation.

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A Buddhist

3/23/2017 08:19:22 pm

I have been thinking about the Four Seals, and how you abuse them to define what I cite as not Buddhism. So let me rephrase what I said in a better way:

The Four Seals are a Guide to how to judge whether a given philosophical claim is Buddhist. Thus, applying the Four Seals, one could judge a person who talks about discovering the soul as not Buddhist, because talk of a soul violates one of the Four Seals.

But there is more to Buddhism as a religion than philosophical claims. Certainly, many Buddhists, myself included, regard the philosophical claims as the heart of Buddhism, since they help one to achieve Nirvana/Nibbana. But there are other aspects of Buddhism that are part of the religion but do not directly touch upon the Four Seals, such as details pertaining to when teachings were given. An example of an aspect of Buddhism that does not directly touch upon the Four Seals is the shape of the Earth.

Finally, I must rate your claim that the Four Seals define Buddhism as an Extreme Failure on another ground: NOT ALL BUDDHIST SECTS ACCEPTED THE FOUR SEALS!

YES! SOME BUDDHIST SECTS REJECTED THE FOUR SEALS. And yet they are considered Buddhist, albeit heretical. The Pudgalavada School of Buddhism accepted a Real Self. This violates the 3rd of the Four Seals. Yet they are Buddhists.

You Fail in defining Buddhism.

You Fail in locating my quotation from a Chinese Scripture.

You Fail in understanding the importance of Homer in understanding Greek Religion.

You Fail in understanding the usefulness of quoting a secondary source about Mesopotamian religion rather than tracking down multiple scriptures.

You Fail in your Efforts to dissuade me from talking through this website.

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Normandie Kent

3/25/2017 07:59:13 pm

When Shaquill stated that light skinned Natives occupied the America's before Columbus he probably meant Native Americans lighter skinned than himself. I doubt he meant European light or fair skinned, because as you say, not all Native Americans had dark skin, and some had very light skin. With all the different ecosystems on the two continents there was great differences of phenotype even though the Native Americans were genetically homogeneous.

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